After I rebooted the pc this afternoon I got an error with svchost.exe. On reporting it to microsoft with a click of the button I got a message “The error “Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Error” occurs after you start or restart your computer.
The error appears in computers with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and security update 873333 (MS05-012) installed. We do not expect this experience to harm your data or the performance of your computer.”
Oops! FIX: Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Error
Month: June 2005
My Orb testing is going well and it doesn’t seem too bad. I found out that if you use a server and client on the same network then the data stays within the lan (according to this forum post). After hard resetting the dell axim I was able to stream video (over the lan) with no perfomance issues. Whilst we were at easton on Wednesday I took the opportunity to use their free wifi and was able to access some of the pictures from home (although it was a bit slow but I think thats the wifi access rather than orb). (At this point mediaplayer was not working on the dell so I couldn’t try accessing a film). Overall I’m pretty impressed. I’ve not yet got round to trying VLC so I’m not sure how the speed compares but it certainly compares favourably with slimserver which is my preferred streamer for audio as it has better indexing/searching facilities.
We went out to a thai restaurant last night and I decided to have quail as I had never had it before. With hindsight it probably was not a good idea as Quail are very small birds. There is not much meat on them and Kristens mum said it was probably pigeon but from my experience pigeons tend to be fat. Apparently the phad thai was good but as it had nuts I only had a tiny taste.
I finished reading Hacker Cracker last night. The first part of the book deals entirely with the authors plight of growing up in a very rough area of town and the struggles that he faces with on a day to day basis. Apart from the first 4 or 5 pages, which contained a fast moving account of what happens when a rogue Chief Technology Officer gets sacked, for the first 71 pages I was wondering whether the book that I was reading had been slipped inside the jacket of hacker cracker as there was no mention of computers at all. The story was still pretty interesting though. Eventually he gets round to his first experience with computers and his encounters with hacking and the addictiveness of it all. Eventually the story ends up with a moving account of being at the site of the twin towers on 9/11 and a very touching part about a strange whistling noise (which I won’t explain as it is a bit of a spoiler). An easy read and not really the usual hacker biography type book. I think this is partly due to the fact that the author is assuming his readers are not technical as some of the explanations (IRC for example) are very basic and some are almost “media stereotypical assumptions” of what really goes on.
As the theme of the book is the struggle to overcome and make life a lot better for his family, the target audience for this book is increased beyond the geek and I think even my mother would like this book!
I’ve been using nod32 on the home pc for the past week as I was having issues with my previous av software and gsak. Both avg and ca’s free av software do not give you the ability to exclude a directory from realtime scanning (or a lot of other so-called advanced features). This means gsak runs really slow.
I wasn’t about to install Nortons or Mcaffee on the pc (despite the pc coming with a free version of Norton (but that is another rant – wants the point of a “free” 90 day version of software? It’s not really free as it just encourages the poor sucker to go and buy the full version and think they are covered ok) ) so I downloaded the trial version of nod32. Yes ok this is similar to the free idea I just ranted about, but at least they are upfront in that it really is a trial version.
However, when I tried to download SIW, a system information gathering tool, nod decided it might be a virus as it has been packed with an executable packer. The file has now been submitted for analysis so it will be interesting to see a) how long it takes to come back with an answer and b) what their conclusion is. My gut feeling is that its been flagged due to the exe packing as a lot of virus use this method to try and escape detection.
Incidentally I got the tip off about this software from PC Doctor who really should allow commenting instead of trackbacks!
Update I guess they fixed it as I can download it ok today. Didn’t get an email from nod though.
Happy Birthday to you…… The Astronomy Picture Of The Day is a great source of some incredible photos of the solar system. I’ve been reading it on and off for about 7 or 8 years I think.
I tried to use orb on the pocketpc last night and the pictures worked great but I had no video. This is due to the nasty bug that occurs when media player immediately closes when it is launched. This is apparently to do with a corrupt default skin or missing shortcut -both of which I checked and neither of these “solutions” fixed the problem. The only other solution was to hard reset the axim. So that is what I did about 10 minutes ago (after doing a backup which took a couple of hours). Now, I can watch movies in media player so I just have to reinstall all the apps again – ugh.
No, not a film about two of our friends, but a very funny film about two assassins, married to each other, who are eventually sent to kill each other. A very funny film, loads of action (including a car chase) and eye candy in the form of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt so everyone is happy. Well worth watching – Kristen wants to go see it again already!
I sat down in the car the other day and the belt clip for my creative zen snapped in half. The zen had been pushed up by the action and snapped the plastic. I sent an email off to Creative for a RMA number and after a couple of days correspondance back and forth they said they would send me a new case foc. However they said that they would make this an exception and that I must not sit down with the zen clipped to my waste. This seems a bit daft to me as a hard disk player is not an ideal choice for listening to when jogging or doing something active, therefore you are likely to use this when sitting down and now they are saying that you shouldn’t use it?
I’m still grateful for them to replace it under warrenty and am looking at getting something like a glorified bumbag to put all my electronic gadgets in. I have found a nice CityWalker pack bag at the container store but it costs $35! This does have pockets for anything and everything and I think would be ideal for putting the gps, camera, pda,zen,notebook,pen and geocaching goodies in.
Orb looks like a good multimedia server package that lets you stream audio and video to any internet connected pda,phone or pc. It will also let you look at your webcam and setup tv recordings (assuming you have a compatible tv card) from a remote machine as well as allow you to view previously saved recordings – beats a vcr anyday. I’ve not actually tried this yet as I don’t have a tv capture card although I am sorely tempted to get one – It would be much more convenient to store tv shows on the hard disk than it would be to remember to rewind the video tape, program it and hope it worked correctly.